Monday, November 22, 2010

This week we are celebrating the arrival of the newest member of our family. We wanted to send a card to the new parents expressing our heartfelt congratulations. Since Melissa loves Winnie The Pooh I decided to use him as theme for the card.

1. Use the parchment card stock and agreeting card program to print the verse on the inside of the card. Use the Half-fold card option.

2. Cut out the largest Spellbinders Label out of the blue dotted paper using either the Sizzix, Cuttlebug or similar die cutting machine. Distress the edges of the label with the tea dye distress ink.

3. Using the Cricut Pooh and Friends cartridge. Cut the sleeping Winnie The Pooh (Pooh 4) at 1 1/2 inches out of black card stock. Press the Layers 1 and 2 key and cut Pooh's body out of yellow card stock. Press the Layers 1 and 2 and the Shift keys and cut Pooh's shirt out of red card stock. Press the Layers 3 and 4 key and cut Pooh's night cap out of blue card stock. Press the Layers 3 and 4 and Shift keys and cut the hat's tassel out of white card stock. Load yellow card stock into the Cricut and set the size dial to 1 inch then press the Icon and Shift keys to cut the stars. Assemble Pooh. Cover Pooh's night cap with glue. Sprinkle blue flocking powder over the entire surface of the night cap and shake off the excess. Set aside to dry.

5. Cut a piece of blue dotted paper approximately 1/4 inch larger (on all sides) than the dimensions of the embossed peach card stock. Glue the embossed peach card stock on top of the blue dotted paper.

6. Glue Pooh to the blue dotted label. Glue the blue dotted label to the embossed peach card stock. Position the three stars just above the top of the label and glue in place.

7. Cut two small pieces of blue print ribbon and place them diagonally across the upper left and lower right corners of the layered card panel. Glue them in place. Tie a small bow and glue it to the ribbon in the upper left corner.

8. Center the layered card panel on the front of the half-fold card.

9. Punch a border out of parchment card stock using the Martha Stewart Doily Punch. Glue the doily border just under the right edge of the card.

10. Dip a small sponge in the tea dye distress ink and dab the ink randomly over the parchment card stock portion of the card. Highlight the edges of the doily border with the tea dye distress ink. Lightly apply smoky blue chalk to the tea dye distressed card. Use blue chalk to shade the area under Pooh. Highlight Pooh's back, arms and legs with a light orange chalk.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

My husband surprised me with a Gypsy for my birthday. I couldn't wait to get it out of the box and start designing. I quickly found out that in order for the Gypsy to be useful I had to update the firmware and link my cartridges to it. This took most of the afternoon. Now I was ready to start designing.

I decided to try using images from two different cartridges. I chose Winnie The Pooh, a scalloped oval and a butterfly. Since I wanted my images cut out of different colors I needed to use the Layer tab (one layer for each color of paper). Next I wanted to cut my scalloped ovals in two different sizes. The first oval was to be cut at 2 1/2 inches and the second one was to be slightly larger. I entered 2.75 inches for the height and the Gypsy sized the width proportionally.

I love the Gypsy. Not only does it have a lot of design capability but it's small enough to take anywhere. I took it with me to the doctor's office and designed a Christmas card while sitting in the waiting room.

1. Using a greeting card program and parchment card stock select the half-fold card option and print Happy Birthday on the top portion of the card. Print the verse on the inside right of the card. Fold the card in half and crease.

2. Using the Gypsy and the Pooh and Friends cartridge, select Winnie The Pooh (with his hands behind his back) and transfer him to Layer 1 on the mat screen. Select Layer 2 and the Gypsy Wanderings cartridge and tap the Shift key to select the scalloped oval. Transfer the image to the mat screen. Select Layer 3 and repeat this process for the oval. Next select Layer 4 and transfer the butterfly from the Gypsy Wanderings cartridge to the mat screen.

3. Place the yellow card stock on the Cricut mat. Tap the Layer 1 key and select a height of 2 1/2 inches for Pooh. Link the Gypsy to the Cricut. Load the mat into the Cricut using the Load Mat key on the Gypsy. Tap the Cut key. Unload the mat and remove the image. Repeat the process using the red and black card stock. Glue the yellow Pooh on top of the black. Take the red Pooh and cut the red shirt out. Glue it on the yellow Pooh.

4. Place the blue and white glitter card stock on the Cricut mat. Tap the Layer 2 key, set the height at 2.5 inches and then tap the Cut key. Using the Gypsy load the mat into the Cricut, tap the Cut key and cut out the oval. Unload the image and place the medium blue card stock on the Cricut mat. Tap the Layer 3 key and set the height to 2.75 inches and cut out the image.

5. Using the Layer 4 key and a height of 2.5 inches cut a butterfly out of black card stock and then orange card stock. Cut the wings off of the orange butterfly and glue them on top of the black butterfly. Cover the wings lightly with the platinum Stickles. Set aside to dry.

6. Punch a scalloped doily border out of parchment card stock. Cut the border to approximately 3/4 inch. Lightly distress the scalloped edges of the border with the tea dye distress ink. Position the cut straight edge of the border along the open edge of the card and glue in place.

7. Position Winnie The Pooh slightly off center on the blue and white dotted oval and glue in place. Center the blue and white dotted oval over the medium blue oval and glue in place. Position the medium blue oval slightly below Happy Birthday and glue in place. Cut the wire stem off of the blue rose and curl the wire stems of the orange roses around a stylus or pen. Pull the stem slightly to elongate it and trim to desired length. Punch two leaves out of a scrap of green card stock. Ink the edges of the leaves with green ink. Position the roses along the lower right side of the oval and glue in place using a hot glue gun. Glue the leaves under the edge of the roses.

8. Tie a small bow with the blue sheer ribbon. Position it slightly under the oval and glue in place.

9. Glue the butterfly to the left of Happy Birthday.

10. Lightly distress the edges of the card with the tea dye distress ink.